Eat to Learn - How School Food Reform Began

That's mexican pizza for lunch, same day as breakfast pizza is served. With a side of chocolate milk and an apple. This student opted out of the sour cherry italian ice and since I sat next to her, I told her all about apples. She ate the whole thing. Huzzah!

I'm spreading the word about Sherwood Elementary's Eat to Learn program and efforts to improve school food in Spring Branch ISD. Kelly the Kitchen Kop is running a guest post from me on this topic today. I am grateful to other bloggers who participate in school food reform by raising awareness with their audience. Thanks Kelly!

In my article I talk about how school food brought me to tears, what inspired me to get involved in school food reform in Spring Branch Independent School District, how the program began, what some of the obstacles are and some compromises that had to be made.

Check out what real foodies have to say about Eat to Learn and if you're so compelled, add your two cents. I'm curious to see how her audience will respond!

It's round up time....

Other school food reform articles
Road Map to School Food Reform for Parents - Start/ Join a committee. This article also describes what current initiatives exist in SBISD and my involvement in them.

Road map to School Food Reform for Parents - Understand the As-Is. As Gracie Cavnar said "school food reform is not black and white." It's one thing to say kids don't need meal-on-a-bun and chocolate milk every day, and quite another to implement a feasible solution with better choices. Districts have many obstacles that stand in the way between what they're serving now, and what kids should be eating. Find out what they are in in your school by asking for a meeting with the Food Services group. You can look at what I learned, make a list of questions to ask.

Road Map to School Food Reform for Parents - Lunch Before Recess One of the first things I did was ask our principal to consider switching lunch and recess. Our Campus Improvement Team and administration was favorable and the schedule change was made as a pilot program for a couple grades. All I did was suggest, via email with a link to an article.

My School Food Reform Manifesto


Other Eat to Learn posts -
Morning Announcements to help kids link fruits and vegetables to learning. Read on to learn how apples, spinach and grapes / raisins impact learning, improve brain function and boost memory.

Eat to Learn - Apples
Eat to Learn - Spinach (this one is in rhyme!)
Eat to Learn - Grapes / Raisins

School Food Reform Meeting in Spring Branch ISD
This is the meeting where the Healthy Lifestyles committee say what we'd like to see changed about school food. The list is long (end of post).

I know that budget is tight. I know that cafeteria staff are already stretched thin (districts can't cook more food from raw ingredients without more human resources and more food and staff budget). I know that schools have to meet reimbursement guidelines making it a challenge to remove favored items like chocolate milk and meals-on-buns.

My approach is to work with the district to reiterate why our kids deserve better food, and how better food supports student success by nourishing their developing minds. And to help identify solutions that can be implemented district wide AND meet current budget, human resource, nutritional and reimbursement requirements.

How You Can Help
If you've read any articles or studies on districts who have implemented school food reform send them my way. If I can show case studies of what other districts have done, perhaps school board officials will see that it's possible to make measurable changes and take the matter seriously. Post them in a comment on the blog, post them to Food With Kid Appeal's Facebook page, or shoot me an email to jenna AT foodwithkidappeal DOT com. Thanks in advance!

Pick Chow Review and Giveaway

Pick Chow was chosen as the 1st place winner by Michelle Obama's Healthy Apps for Kids competition. What can it help your child learn about making healthy meals? At the end of the review will be details on how to win a Zisboombah reusable canvas bag full of Zisboombah goodies for kids!

Even Astronauts Should Learn How to Cook
I was at a play date once when the mother of a preschooler remarked while her daughter was busily playing in the kitchen playset, "I wish she wasn't so fascinated with the kitchen, I'd like for her to be an astronaut." I scratched my head.

Is there a rule that says professions that require advanced degrees and high intellect are hindered by learning to cook? What happens when that astronaut or brain surgeon never learns how to A) prepare nourishing food or B) determine what a nourishing meal is? Then you have brilliant accomplished professional who may be stuck eating convenience food for a life time. If that happens, the brilliant accomplished professional will suffer from ill health, early onset disease and have her career (ahem, life) cut short.

Much better, in my opinion, to teach even those with fine minds destined for important careers to identify and prepare nourishing meals. The next generation's survival depends on it.

Here's a tool that teaches kids the elements of nourishing meals and how to put them together.

Pick Chow, the Review

The Plate
75% (roughly) of the plate is about even portions of fruit, vegetables, and grains/starchy vegetables.
25% (roughly) of the plate is divided between meat and beans and dairy, the latter a smaller slice.

This makes sense. It highlights fruit and veg, and lumps starchy veg with grains. I kind of like that because I think the food pyramid is a little top heavy on grains and we could all benefit from swapping some grain servings for starchy veg. The Standard American Diet is generally animal protein heavy, so it makes sense to have a smaller allotment of meat and for meat to share a spot with beans. I'm all for anything that helps people eat more beans. Those super duper beans; we all need more of 'em.

The "Add it Up" Meters
This is the cause and effect part of the activity. Kids drag a food from the food panel on the left onto the plate and watch indicators on the protein, carbs, fat and fiber meters move from red (meaning too little or too much) to green (meaning just right). I like this. Not too much importance is placed on fiber in school food guidelines or on product labels. Fiber is an important part of carbohydrates kids need to know about.

The Three S's
Sugar, salt and saturated fat are also measured and metered from red to green. Sugar is hidden in so many things this gives kids a chance to see whether or not a banana muffin really is a good breakfast. Put a hot dog and some chips on the plate and the sodium meter heads to red.

This is a 5 Star Meal
Your kid's meal will get an overall star rating. I put our normal taco meal together. It only got 2 stars, so I didn't get to add a desert to my plate.

My Dislikes
There isn't too much junk food on the food list. I see the rationale behind that. It suggests by what is not available what should be eaten. But, how powerful would it be for the parent of the junk food addicted kid to put a 20oz soda, triple bologna sandwich, huge bag of Cheetos, and a snack pack of Oreos on the plate to see what the "Add it Up" meters say about that meal?

As far as age goes, this site was not very engaging for my 4 and 6 year old kids. The food list is comprehensive which also makes it a lot to take in for a beginning reader. Because there wasn't much sound or motion graphics involved it didn't keep their interest for very long. I expect the experience would be different for readers grade 2 and up.

Pick Chow - The Giveaway.
Enter a comment for a chance to win a reusable bag from Zisboombah including a wristband and temporary tattoos. Good Luck!

In your comment:

1) leave your email address in this format so I can contact you when you win jenna AT foodwithkidappeal DOT com.

2) Answer this question: What benefit will your kid get from learning how to put together a wholesome meal?

You can get extra entries to win if you:

• "like" me on Facebook and tell me you did so/already do in the comment section.
• Suggest my page on Facebook to Friends (use the link under the profile pic) and tell me you did in the comment section.
  
• subscribe to my email or become a reader and tell me you did so/already do in the comment section.
• follow me on twitter and tell me you did so/already do in the comments.
  

The fine print
I am a contributor to the Zisboombah blog. I was not compensated in any way to write this review. The opinions I expressed here are my own. Only separate comment entries will be counted multiple times. If you want more than one chance, leave more than one comment. The contest closes at midnight October 27th, 2010. I will draw a winner and notify the winner via email. Thanks for entering!

Eat to Learn - Grapes and Your Brain

The kids are learning about grapes and raisins at school this week.

5 Ways Grapes and Raisins Power Your Brain

• Did you know a raisin is a grape that’s lost its water? Carbohydrates like grapes provide energy to your brain. Thinking, learning and remembering requires lots of energy. The cells in your brain have no pockets, drawers or cabinets to store energy. If you want your brain to be full, you have to feed your brain several times a day. Skipping breakfast, lunch, snack or dinner is bad for your brain!
• A flavonal in grapes named e-pi-cat-e-chin enhances your memory. Can you remember to eat grapes in fruit salad or off of the vine? Grapes help you remember math patterns and facts.
• For a memory boosting breakfast try oatmeal with raisins. Kids who eat good carbohydrates like oats and raisins before school learn the most.
• Your greedy brain needs 10 times more oxygen than your other organs. There is good oxygen that makes your brain cells breathe, and bad oxygen that hurt your brain cells. Micronutrients in grapes help the good oxygen go in and keep the bad oxygen out. Those round light green globes in fruit cocktail are grapes. Your brain is greedy for grapes!
• Raisins are everywhere, in oatmeal and cookies. Boost your memory while having a treat. Next time you have a choice between an M&M cookie and oatmeal raisin, pick the memory cookie with raisins. Feed your brain raisins!

One of our fave ways to eat grapes? Frozen Grapes!

This post is participating in Real Food Wednesday hosted by Kelly the Kitchen Kop.

What was grape news to you?

I learned that the brain can not store glucose for later use like other vital organs do. Access to food is not just about growth and hunger avoidance. When kids skip meals their brain doesn't have access to power. That explains why hungry kids often make poor choices they usually get right.

How to Bring the Food Revolution to Your Child's School Start (Join) a Wellness Committee

In June I shared with you where my sons' school (in SBISD, Texas) is at in our journey to improve school breakfast and lunch. This is the second update in the series, How to Bring the Food Revolution to Your School.

First I'll share details with you about the campus and district committees that I'm participating in. Second, I'll share our Healthy Lifestyles committee's list of requests we'd like to present to Child Nutritional Services to start improving school breakfast and lunch. Lastly I'll share what our next steps are.

Start or Join a Committee
If you're new to the cause of bringing a food revolution to your child's school, the best place to start is with an existing group of like minded individuals. Some names I've heard of are Healthy Lifestyles (PTA group), Wellness Committee, or Student Health Advisory Council (a SBISD district initiative). Ask your child's teacher, principal or PTA president if a committee already exists. If not? You start one. That's what I did. Our district has SHAC, but since it focuses on student safety, counseling, staff wellness, community involvement, fitness and nutrition, I felt we needed a group that was more narrowly focused on fitness and nutrition for the students. I let our PTA president and principal know I wanted to start a committee, got the green light, and placed a sign-up sheet for volunteers at as many school functions as I can attend. We gave ourselves the name Healthy Lifestyles which is PTA's initiative that encompasses fitness and nutrition.

I am so thrilled with the current membership of our HL committee. It's nice to have other like-minded parents willing to take on some tasks to make nutrition and physical wellness a priority for Sherwood kids. Our principal also gives us the support we need, so that helps.

Student Health Advisory Council
I participate in our District SHAC and our Campus SHAC. I've attended one meeting for each. The District Council is where district wide initiatives can be brought for review and assessment. Then the council can make recommendations to the School Board of Directors. Our Campus SHAC council is focused on improving student safety, counseling, staff wellness, community involvement, fitness and nutrition to our campus. Our campus initiatives this year include:

• implementing and measuring results of the Eat to Learn program, which launched last week at Sherwood
• modifying the pre-K schedule to include 135 minutes of physical activity (they currently get 100 minutes).
  
• assessing our as-is in all components and planning programs for next year. Our campus SHAC is new so this is our practice year!
  

Healthy Lifestyles Committee
I've been recruiting for new members at school functions including the back to school coffee for parents, our first PTA meeting/Open House. We'll also have a booth at our school Carnival to sign up new members. We had our first meeting September 30th where we addressed:

• Brief members on Sherwood's Eat to Learn Program, grant application through National PTA. Goal is to increase participation and consumption of fresh food currently available in the school meals by connecting benefits of eating fresh produce with learning and movement (physical activity).
  
• Brief members on the summer meeting with Child Nutritional Services (see Good News/Bad News in the middle of the post)
• Plan for year (one member is planning the obstacle course booth at the school Carnival, two members are looking into the possibility of getting a salad bar at our school, one member is doing research on ingredients and recipes in current school lunch menu offerings).
  
• Discuss proposed menu changes to school lunch and breakfast. Included in the proposed recommendations are:
  

1. Eliminate or reduce frequency of chocolate milk availability at lunch.
2. Eliminate or reduce frequency of cinnamon toast crunch availability at breakfast.
3. Offer oatmeal and/or hard boiled eggs for breakfast
4. Add water as an a la carte option at lunch
5. Offer more unprocessed meat for lunch (right now baked chicken is offered once in a 5 week rotation, most other animal proteins are processed meats).
6. Offer deep fat fried foods less often (nuggets, chicken patties, "tater tot" ish type potato sides, taco shells, tortilla chips)
7. Less sausage more eggs at breakfast.
8. Eliminate days where pizza is offered for breakfast and lunch on the same days.
9. Reduce frequency of fruit juice offered at breakfast
10. Increase frequency of fresh fruit offered at breakfast
11. "Green our food", source food with less additives, ingredients that are GMO-free, rBGH free dairy (all our borden products are hormone free, but haven't verified yet if we get other non Borden dairy products), remove foods with petroleum based food coloring
    
12. Include non-wheat grains in the menu more often - rice is only offered once in a 5 week cycle. Oats are never offered.
13. Offer unsweetened applesauce. We currently have recipe that adds sugar and cinnamon to applesauce! Sigh.

Next Steps for Eat to Learn, Healthy Lifestyles Committee and C-SHAC.

• Healthy Lifestyles - Schedule meeting with Director of Child Nutritional Services to review the requested changes to the breakfast and lunch menu. Schedule next HL meeting.
  
• C-SHAC - hold Eat to Learn implementation session to plan curriculum with subject specialists.
• Eat to Learn - Write morning announcements for remaining 17 foods on the schedule, plan food sourcing for Taste off Competition.

This post is participating in Real Food Wednesday hosted by Kelly the Kitchen Kop.

Now I want to know how school food revolution initiatives are going at your school? What name does your committee go by? What unhealthy food has your school said good-bye to recently? Have you had to take any steps backward?

Soup Recipes - Help, my Kids Won't Eat Soup

Do your kids hate soup? Mine did. Soup was one of the hardest things to get my kids to adopt regularly. Chili and bean soups were well tolerated by my older son, but the broth, meat, vege combination turned both kids off. Initially. My youngest (now 4) tolerated soup well as a baby, but it was one of the first things to go when toddlers start food aversions. He didn't adopt soups readily until the end of last year's cool season when he was approaching his 4th birthday.

I did 2 things to make soup night, a weekly occurrence in my house, a little less anxiety provoking for my boys.

Bread - Number One Teach a Kid To Love Soup Strategy
I always serve soup with bread. Bread is not an every meal item for us, so the kids love it when we have it. Plus bread usually gets toppings they enjoy like gobs of Organic Valley Pasture Butter (with CLAs) on skillet cornbread or a hunk of melty Tillamook Cheddar Cheese on bakery bread. One of these days Santa will bring me a breadmaker and I'll make bread at home, until then I buy fresh bread from the natural food store. The rule on bread, you can have all you want as long as you finish your soup. When they were toddlers and more averse on soup, the rule was three bites of soup before they took seconds, and I cut them off at two pieces of bread.

Stories - Number Two Teach a Kid To Love Soup Strategy
One night when the boys were both preschoolers and still showing strong signs of hate for soup, I needed a mood changer at the dinner table. So I went with the "distraction" method. I was tired of hearing the complaints, so I changed the subject.

"Who wants to hear a scary story?"

They were in agreement, but still distressed. I needed props. Candles lit. Lights out. Wide eyes looking at me with anticipation. I began my story which always involved two little brothers in some sort of peril that turned out to be mistunderstood sounds or happenings. A few times in the story I would stop and ask,

"Do you want to hear what happens next?"

"Yes" the wide-eyed brothers respond.

"Then eat 3 bites of soup."

Transform Your Soup Hater into a Soup Eater
I believe it's possible to turn your soup hater into a soup eater. It may not be a fast transformation. My own data points show that it took 2+ years of bread and stories to get the boys to the point where they will eat any soup combination I come up with. Easy, no. Possible, yes. Hope? Absolutely. With enough practice in a loving and positive environment, anything is possible.


Soup Recipe Round Up
I actually don't have a lot of soup recipes posted, because most of my soups are a combination of home-made broth in the freezer + onion, celery, carrot + leftover vege in the fridge + protein + some grain. I rarely make the same "recipe" twice as my leftover protein, vege, is always different. Here's a list of recipes in the soup, stew, chili category of dinners.

Garlicky Black Bean Taco Soup
Black Beans and Rice
Split Pea Soup from Hambone
Cream of Mushroom Soup
Minestrone Soup (ish)
Homemade Vegetable Broth
Beany Chili
Rice and Beans
Homemade Vegetable Bouillon

Frugal Soup
Soup in our house is usually frugal. I rarely buy ingredients for soup. The soup I make usually depends on what kind of broth I have stashed in the freezer, left-over protein, vege, and some type of grain/starch. Homemade broth is a great way to stretch dollars spend on pastured animal protein. It's pricey for sure, so make sure you're using the bones to flavor broths and stocks. Same goes with organic or local produce. It's pricey so use up peels, tops, leftovers in your soups and stews. I often stash vege leftovers in a container in the freezer and when I make a pot of beans or soup, the left over vege gets tossed in.

This post is participating in LifeAsMom's Ultimate Recipe Swap, Cooking Thursday and The Nourishing Gourmet's Pennywise Platter.

Eat to Learn
If you're visiting from another blog, welcome! I invite you to take a look at a new series I've just started called Eat to Learn. The mission with this series is to help kids connect nourishing food to brain and activity so they have a relevant reason to eat up. I'll be covering 20 fruits, vegetables and proteins in this series. Don't miss a single one!

sign up for email subscription,
Follow me in a reader
"Like" me on Facebook

and see each Eat to Learn edition as it's released.

Do you kids eat soup? Yet?

Disclaimer (spell check not working in blogger, apologies in advance if you see many errors...)

Eat to Learn - Apples. What They Do For Your Kid's Brain

I love learning new stuff. My perceptions about apples were limited to antioxidants and a fruit vessel for fiber. Plus they taste good. When I started researching apples to find ways to connect apple consumption to brain function I found more than I expected!

Hints: Chew your fruit, glucose = brain fuel, mental clarity, greedy brain cells.

Because of all the comments on my first guest post (Make Real Food Relevant to Kids) on Zisboombah's blog, they have asked me to be a regular contributor! Thanks to all of you who commented, I love hearing from you and I love it when you help me build connections with other healthy kid food sites. Because of you, my reach is now bigger (and closer to getting on Michelle Obama's radar...) I know, I have lofty goals. Dare to dream?

Eat to Learn
This week I introduced Zisboombah readers to the Apple segment of the Eat To Learn program now underway at Sherwood and Rummel Creek Elementary (Spring Branch ISD) in Houston, TX. We launched our Eat To Learn morning announcements this week. I can't wait to hear what the students and teachers are saying about the morning announcements. I wonder how many weeks it will be before the cafeteria manager has to start ordering more produce to meet increased demand.

Talk About Apples
I'm asking for your participation again. Head on over to my post connecting apple consumption to brain function for kids and learn some interesting facts that may help your kids gobble them up.

What? Your kids already eat apples. Huzzah! Go read it anyway and learn some stuff so you can help teach your kids' friends, their teachers, your parents why apples are good eats. Let's all take part in transforming the way kids eat.

Apples Good For Kids, Grandparents All Ages In Between
Most of the studies I researched showed that the same memory improvement and defense against oxidative stress applied to the aging brain. What's good for kid is also good for grandma and grandpa! (Disclaimer: the research focused on improvements to the aging brain who had increased apple JUICE in the diet. While 100% fruit juice may benefit the brain, it also is hard on the liver. My personal opinion would be to EAT apples, to get the antioxidant benefit, while not subjecting the liver to increased fructose metabolism. As usual, don't take my word for it, do some research and decide if fruit juice is the right beverage for your kids.)

This post is participating in Real Food Wednesday hosted by Kelly the Kitchen Kop.


I know it's hard to see, but that's a picture of my guys eating apples, midway on a hike to a waterfall in Arkansas. Is it just me, or do apples taste most amazing on a hike break?

Now, be off. Read about apples, tell Zisboombah what you think by leaving a comment. Thanks in advance!